Mary Grow

by Mary Grow Waterville continued The area on the west shore of the Kennebec River that became the town (and then the city) of Waterville had farms and farmers before those mentioned in last week’s article. There were “productive” farms by the 1790s, Rev. Edwin Carey Whittemore wrote in his chapter on the early settlers […]

by Mary Grow Two neighbors of Eric James’ planned self-storage facilities at 367 Windsor Road (Route 32 South) attended the China Planning Board’s July 14 public hearing. Neither supported the project. But planning board members found that the thorough and complete application first submitted at their June 23 meeting (see the July 2 issue of […]

by Mary Grow Vassalboro Conservation Commission members talked about some of their specific projects, and more generally about their area of responsibility, at their July 15 meeting. Chairman Holly Weidner raised the broader topic, an expansion on her concern about how well bass tournament participants check their boats for invasive plants before launching them in […]

by Mary Grow Waterville agriculture, yet another story A correction to the article on Waterville agriculture in the July 9 issue of The Town Line: information on George Shores in the 1902 centennial celebration should have been attributed to E. P. Mayo, author of the agriculture chapter in Whittemore’s history of Waterville, not to Samuel […]

by Mary Grow At an unusually short pair of July 27 meetings, China select board members acted on abatement requests; appointed a new town clerk; added a member to each of two committees and disbanded a third; and awarded a bid. In their capacity as assessors, they approved a tax abatement for the prior year. […]

by Mary Grow Agriculture in Waterville, final Waterville’s agricultural organizations were an important part of the 19th-century farming community not yet examined in detail. E. P. Mayo, in Rev. Edwin Carey Whittaker’s Waterville history, and Henry Kingsbury and Samuel Boardman, in Kingsbury’s Kennebec County history, describe the Waterville-based North Kennebec Agricultural Society as a long-running […]

by Mary Grow The high point of the Vassalboro Cemetery Committee’s July 20 meeting came at the end, when member Jane Aiudi shared results of her historical research – not on a cemetery, but on the committee itself and ways the town has managed cemetery care. Aiudi had gone through about 50 years of town […]

by Mary Grow Several topics discussed at the China select board’s Aug. 10 meeting seem likely to appear on a Nov. 3 ballot for voters’ decisions. The potentially expensive one is the China Village Volunteer Fire Department’s request for funds for a new fire truck, estimated to cost up to $750,000. At the June 9 […]

by Mary Grow At 7:58 p.m. on Aug. 6, as China’s Emergency Services Assessment Committee (CESAC) approached moderator Paul Froman’s preferred adjournment time, Froman commented, “It’s almost eight o’clock, and we’ve managed to cover one item on the agenda.” Board members set Thursday, Aug. 27, as their tentative next meeting date, at 6 p.m. in […]

by Mary Grow Following James North’s report on Hallowell’s 1784 condition (from last week’s article), here is his report, taken from his 1870 Augusta history, on another survey, in 1792. By then, the population of Hallowell including future Augusta was probably around 1,200. People were still miserably housed; the number of “dwelling houses” (not including […]